Peter Schweizer has spent years following the money in Washington. Now he says one little-known federal employment category deserves a much harder look.
The investigative author and president of the Government Accountability Institute says the Special Government Employee, or SGE, program has strayed far from its intended purpose — allowing political operatives to move inside government while maintaining outside interests.
“It has morphed into a massively abused program where political operatives, political hacks become SGEs to come into these government agencies and conduct these kind of influence operation campaigns,” Schweizer told NewsNation’s Batya Ungar-Sargon.
“We need to end the abuse of this program.”
The issue came up after Ungar-Sargon asked Schweizer about a Wall Street Journal investigation into Corey Lewandowski’s activities while serving as a special government employee at the Department of Homeland Security.
The Journal reported allegations that Lewandowski pursued outside business opportunities while wielding considerable influence inside the department. Lewandowski has disputed key elements of that reporting.
Schweizer said the bigger problem goes beyond one political operative.
He described the SGE designation as a category intended for people brought into government temporarily for specialized expertise.
“You’re a nuclear physicist, and you want to go work at the Department of Energy on a specific project for a few months,” Schweizer said, describing the kind of specialist he believes the program was meant to accommodate.
Federal law defines SGEs more broadly as temporary or intermittent government employees expected to work no more than 130 days during a 365-day period. They remain subject to federal ethics rules, although some conflict-of-interest restrictions apply differently than they do to full-time government employees.
That flexibility is exactly what Schweizer says Washington has learned to exploit.
“It started under Obama. It’s continued under Trump. We need it ended,” he said.
“It should only be for people with very highly specialized skills, and influence peddling is not one of them.”
Schweizer applied the same standard to government contracts involving politically connected people: disclosure and a genuinely competitive process.
“When it comes to government contracts, the key is you got to have transparency,” he said. “People can bid for it even if you’re related to officials. But it is a fair and open process.”
Schweizer also pushed back on proposals to send Americans thousands of dollars in new government checks, warning that politicians can quickly turn relief into an expensive bidding contest.
“The Democrats could offer $10,000,” he said. “You end up in this bidding war.”
“I get concerned when it becomes an argument between political parties as to who can provide the most money that, as you pointed out, we frankly can’t afford to spend.”
Schweizer said the more sustainable answer is economic growth — bringing in additional revenue through expanded economic activity rather than simply raising taxes.
Watch the clip above.
